Back on top: Japan beats team from Texas for title

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, PA.» The crack of the bat, the gasp from the crowd, a fist pump on the trip around the bases and then a happy hop into teammates at home plate.

Japan went through the routine three times in the fourth inning of the Little League World Series championship game Sunday as Daisuke Hashimoto, Keitaro Miyahara and Natsuki Yajima homered, turning a tight game with Lufkin, Texas, into a 12-2 rout.

Tsubasa Tomii buckled down after allowing two first-inning home runs, finishing with nine strikeouts in a game that was stopped in the bottom of the fifth inning after Japan went ahead by 10 runs on Yajima’s single to right field that scored Seiya Arai.

“We were thrilled after we won the Japanese region before we came here,” Miyahara said through an interpreter. “But now getting to this level and becoming the Little League World Series champions this year, it can’t get any better than this.”

It’s the 11th time a team from Japan has won the Little League World Series — five of those championships coming in the last eight years. Tokyo Kitasuna, the club representing Japan this season, has won three of the last six.

Lufkin had a six-run comeback victory over a team from Greenville, N.C., in the U.S. championship game Saturday to reach the final. And early on, it looked as though the Texans’ momentum would carry through Sunday’s showdown.

Japan had allowed only one run in the tournament heading into Sunday, but that changed when Chandler Spencer crushed the first pitch over the left-center field fence.

Hunter Ditsworth cracked an oppositefield homer down the right-field line to put Lufkin ahead 2-0 with one out in the first inning. But Miyahara laced a two-run triple with two outs in the second inning to tie it 2-2, and Ryusei Fujiwara fisted a single to right to bring Miyahara home.

Lufkin manager Bud Maddux, who has coached youth baseball for 41 years and won 10 total championships, came just short of the most coveted title, in Little League. He blamed himself for the loss Sunday.

“Just like I told my team, I’ll take full credit for that,” Maddux said. “We didn’t make some adjustments that we should have. You can’t hang your head because (Japan) beat you. They’re a great baseball team, but we are too.”

Sunday, however, was Japan’s day. After Arai slid across the plate with Japan’s 12th run, his teammates leaped out of their dugout to hug him near home plate, jumping up and down in celebration.